This too is technical communication

[Beth Agnew]

Technical writing as a formal discipline has been around since my parents'
day for sure, and probably since the middle of the industrial age. Going
back to the lack of outreach, many people don't think of it as a discipline
because we've had no PR on the issue.

I've worked with too many marketing writers who didn't understand their
audience, didn't know how to clearly explain something, couldn't logically
flow an idea from one thought to the next, or get basic technical details
right. While not every technical writer should be a marketing writer, the
field of technical marketing is a good option for those of us who want to
specialize in that area. 

Rather than actually DOING everything (you know what they say about a
Jack-of-All-Trades) these are directions any good technical writer can
pursue to make a living and follow their interests. Why should we be
pigeonholed into only writing certain kinds of documentation, and who
defines "technical"? I would say, however, that it would be more like saying
a developer can develop any type of application because they can code, not
that they can also write documentation. Let's keep the developers away from
writing documentation. :-)
--Beth

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+beth.agnew=senecac.on.ca at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+beth.agnew=senecac.on.ca at lists.techwr-l.com] On
Behalf Of Troy Klukewich
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:05 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: This too is technical communication

I agree that technical writing has an image problem. To some degree, the
field is starting to mature only now as a formal discipline. 
 
I do not believe that the best way to validate our profession is to show
where we can add value outside of formal technical writing projects, through
marketing, sales, and other kinds of writing. There are many types of
writing and those are their own fields, too. In some ways, saying we can
write up marketing and other materials because we're writers is a little
like saying that any developer can write documentation because they can
write. Each is its own field.
 
<snip>